My Genealogy Hound

CHARLES H. GILMAN.
The farming interests of Douglas township find a worthy representative in Charles H. Gilman, who is living on section 24, where he owns a good tract of land of eighty acres, on which he has lived for five years. He also has eighty-eight acres in Highland township and thus derives his income from good farming property of one hundred and sixty-eight acres. Living in the county since 1872, he is familiar with much of the history of its development and improvement and has watched it emerge from frontier conditions to take its place with the leading counties of this great commonwealth.

Mr. Gilman is a native of Mercer county, Illinois, born on the 10th of July, 1860. His father, True Gilman, was a native of Oneida county, New York, born in 1828, and was a farmer and dairyman. In the state of his nativity he wedded Rosetta Tennant, a native of the Empire state, where they continued to reside for several years prior to their removal westward to Mercer county, Illinois. In the latter locality they spent a few years, after which the father went to California with his family and remained for seven years in that state. He engaged in the dairy business along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad, which was then being built. On returning to Illinois he continued his residence in that state for two years and in 1872 came to Iowa, settling in Highland township, Union county, where he purchased one hundred and sixty acres of land, upon which he successfully carried on general farming for twenty years. His labors were of a practical character and resulted in converting the prairie land into rich and productive fields from which good harvests were annually garnered. After two decades had here been devoted to the tilling of the soil he removed to Creston and lived a retired life until called to his final home in 1895, when he was sixty-seven years of age. His wife survived him until 1901 and died at the age of sixty-nine years. In their family were three children, of whom Charles H. is the eldest. One has passed away while the living sister is Mrs. Dora McGinnis, the wife of Robert McGinnis.

Charles H. Gilman was a youth of twelve years when his parents took up their abode in Union county. He acquired a common-school education and was also a student in the Creston high school. He remained at home until he had attained his majority and secured a practical knowledge of the best methods of carrying on farm work through aid which he rendered his father in the care and cultivation of the fields. In early manhood he homesteaded three hundred and twenty acres of land in Colorado but afterward sold that property and returned to his father’s farm, which he conducted for several years or until the estate was divided.

On the 18th of March, 1891, Mr. Gilman was united in marriage to Miss Leonora Walkington, a native of Union county, Iowa, and a daughter of Thomas Walkington, a farmer of Douglas township and a pioneer of this county, taking up his abode within its borders in 1868. Unto Mr. and Mrs. Gilman have been born five children: Daisy R., True W., Charles H., Ethel C. and Harry L., all yet at home.

In 1902 Mr. Gilman purchased eighty acres of land on section 24, Douglas township, and the place has since been his home. He now has one hundred and sixty-eight acres, the remainder being situated in Highland township. He is very practical, diligent and energetic in the improvement of his place and in connection with the tilling of the soil he carries on a dairy business, keeping fifteen cows for this purpose. He has a good grade of stock and he also feeds and raises Poland China hogs, shipping from one to two carloads per year. His business interests are well managed and have made him one of the substantial residents of the community.

In politics Mr. Gilman is a republican, in hearty sympathy with the principles of the party, but at local elections votes independently. He has served on the school board for several years as a director. He belongs to the Modern Woodmen Camp at Creston and attends the Methodist Episcopal church. As a representative of the self-made men of Union county he deserves mention in this volume, for his success is attributable entirely to his own efforts. His life has largely been one of earnest and unremitting toil and his record proves that determination and diligence are an excellent foundation upon which to build prosperity.